Bangkok is one of only four cities in the world — alongside Geneva, London and Mumbai — chosen to host the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) 2026 World Tour, and the exhibition is now open at Gaysorn Amarin from 15–18 October. Often called the "Oscars of Watchmaking", the travelling show brings together all 78 nominated timepieces ahead of the 26th annual awards ceremony in Geneva on 7 November. It's the first time the tour has been back in Thailand since its local debut eight years ago.
Admission gives visitors a rare close-up of pieces that normally live behind boutique glass — grand feu enamel dials, hand-finished bridges, micro-rotors — and the chance to see mass-produced luxury watches displayed alongside artisanal creations made in quantities of fewer than 50 a year. Everything is judged by the same criteria, which is exactly the point of the exercise.
The story behind Bangkok's selection is as interesting as the watches themselves. Thai collectors have shifted noticeably in a decade: the average luxury watch client was 45 to 50 years old in 2018; now it's 35 to 40. These younger buyers arrive armed with online knowledge and skip the usual entry-level phase, going straight into the mechanics of independent watchmakers. Narun Thamavaranukup, managing director of PMT The Hour Glass, which hosts the event, says the local mindset — a deep respect for arts and craftsmanship — translates naturally into appreciation of horology. Collectors now ask who made a watch and why a single dial might take 2,000 hours to complete, rather than just what it might resell for.
The 2026 awards season itself reflects wider change in the industry. The old "Men's" and "Ladies'" categories have been retired in favour of "Essential Watch" and "Complication Watch", judging pieces by purpose and mechanical achievement rather than gender, while a new "Gemset Watch" category treats gem-setting as an artistic discipline in its own right.
For travellers passing through Bangkok this week, it's a genuinely one-off cultural stop — the kind of exhibition that usually means a flight to Switzerland. Even if you're not in the market for a six-figure watch, seeing the shortlist in one room is a compact education in why some objects take years to build. Narun's framing is a good one: the difference between owning a watch and understanding the art of watchmaking, and once you cross that line, you don't go back.
If you miss this leg, the awards ceremony itself takes place in Geneva in November, with the winners then touring globally — but Bangkok's four-day run is the easier ticket for most of Asia.
— Bangkok Post Life
